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Can your digital photos reveal where you live?

Camera You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who still uses the traditional film'n'flash camera today.  Everyone from grandparents attending a school nativity producers to young children on school trips, seems to use digital cameras.

They're easy, (relatively) cheap and – if you upload your photos to websites like Facebook or MySpace – could reveal where you live.

The problem comes in the form of the Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF), a feature of many cameras which allows individuals to store (even without their knowledge) information as to the digital effects applied to any photo, whether or not a flash was used or – concerning – the GPS coordinates of where it was take. 

"EXIF can also contain the precise GPS coordinates for where a photo was taken. This information is readily accessible and can be plugged into software such as Google Maps — leading some security and photography experts to express concerns about amateurs unknowingly disclosing private information, such as the location of their home"

Click here to read the full article on the CNN website.

By Daniel Hamilton.

Posted on October 16, 2010 by Big Brother Watch Posted in Online privacy, Privacy
  • anonymous

    I use a film camera… anyway, why is it that on a site concerned with privacy and such that an email address is compulsory to comment?

  • Slacker
  • ukftw

    I’ve always found that Facebook strips the information from the picture. I guess it’s possible that FB themselves could save the info before the image is processed but other users won’t be able to glean anything from it.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/alexdeane Alex Deane

    @ anonymous, Slacker is absolutely right! We take privacy seriously. In the “Your Privacy” section you will see set out at the link at the bottom of this page, I have written:
    Comments
    We only edit comments for extreme profanity, and delete spam comments. You will note that you are required by the engine we use to put in an e-mail address – please feel free to use a false one. :)
    @ukftw – that’s useful knowledge re FB. But how about
    * Atpic
    * BlueMelon
    * Flickr
    * Fotki
    * Imageshack
    * Imgur
    * Interartcenter
    * ipernity
    * Jalbum
    * Kodak Gallery
    * Mobile Me
    * Panoramio
    * Photobucket
    * Phanfare
    * Picasa
    * Piczo.com
    * SmugMug
    * Snapfish
    * Shutterfly
    * Webshots
    * Wikimedia Commons[5]
    * Woophy
    * Zooomr
    …?
    And I know that plenty of websites (like ours!) host pictures…

  • Gordon861

    This is hardly news is it?
    Anyone with a computer that has right clicked one of their images and looked at the properties should be aware of all sorts of data being stored.
    Also anyone buying a camera that advertises as GPS enabled that doesn’t realise it records the location is an idiot.

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    Also anyone buying a camera that advertises as GPS enabled that doesn’t realise it records the location is an idiot.